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More About This Book

Overview

After a failed career and marriage in California, Hugh Davoren is back in Helena, Montana, as a construction hand at the old Pettyjohn Ranch, home of many childhood memories—including the seemingly accidental death of his teenaged first love, Celia.

Hugh is just trying to get through another long workday on the ranch when he discovers two dead stallions. A further probe into the matter only pushes Hugh into dangerous corners, as he finds that the ranch's slick new owner, his beautiful wife, and even old Mr. Pettyjohn have terrible secrets to keep.

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Stasio
… McMahon is a writer and a half, and whenever he peels away from his brooding hero to look at the landscape or listen to the thoughts of humbler men, his words carry for miles.
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly

McMahon (Revolution No. 9and three other thrillers starring Dr. Carroll Monks) delivers his finest achievement to date with this beautifully written stand-alone set in contemporary Montana. Hugh Davoren, a former journalist and ex-boxer now doing construction near where he grew up outside Helena, is working on the building of a massive residence on the old Pettyjohn homestead, recently purchased by an East Coast businessman, Wesley Balcomb. Davoren keeps his head low and does his job, until he comes across two thoroughbred horses unceremoniously shotgunned and buried in the site trash dump. Next thing he knows, Davoren's thrown in jail overnight on a trumped-up charge. What kind of shady operation is Balcomb running, and why is he suddenly so determined to ruin Davoren's life? Aided by his co-worker and friend, "Madbird," a hardcase Blackfoot Indian and Vietnam vet, Davoren grapples with a host of antagonists, including Kirk Pettyjohn, old man Pettyjohn's crack-addict son, and an assassin known as John Doe. A natural storyteller, McMahon is sure to appeal to fans of James Crumley and Jim Harrison. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews
Library Journal

From the moment construction hand Hugh Davoren found the dead horses buried on the Pettyjohn Ranch, he was a man in trouble, on the run from owner Wesley Balcomb, who wants him out of the picture. But Hugh is tough, in the way that all good Western heroes are tough, and he has friends—an old flame to bail him out of jail and a Native American veteran of the Vietnam War—to help him cope with the hit man sent to get him. Multiple mysteries, including the death of a young girl 20 years earlier on the ranch, combine to create a gripping Western thriller that keeps readers turning the pages. McMahon broke into writing with medical thrillers (To the Bone, Blood Double) but has returned to his roots in Montana for his fifth novel. Recommended for most large fiction collections.
—Ken St. Andre

Kirkus Reviews
Death of a neigh-sayer. Two hoofs belonging to two of the Pettyjohn Ranch thoroughbreds are discovered at the dump by worker Hugh Davoren, who grew up fixing things around the place when it belonged to old Reuben and his son, and sassy Celia Thayer flirted with all the men around, including adolescent Hugh. Currently, the ranch, straddling the border between Montana and Canada, belongs to Wesley and Laurie Balcomb, dilettante ranchers and horse-raisers. Laurie, a dead ringer for the bygone Celia, suddenly seems interested in Hugh, but he's got enough trouble on his hands without romancing the owner's wife. Fighting with Reuben's drunken son Kirk, he kills him in self-defense and buries the body with the help of his Blackfoot pal Madbird. Then he's ordered off the ranch when Wesley accuses him, rightly, of taking lumber from the place. Still, the boards had been discarded, the firing seems capricious-at least to Hugh-and in trying to salvage his reputation and life, he keeps bumping into Celia's double and discovering that Wesley's interest in the spread and the thoroughbreds is a cover-up for a get-rich scheme centering on the ranch's proximity to Canada. A sprawling western saga, more Edna Ferber than Agatha Christie, from the author of the Monks medical mysteries (To the Bone, 2003, etc.). Readers with a taste for escalating violence, Native American ritual and intergenerational lust may stick around to the end. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh/William Morris Agency

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060792220
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 6/3/2008
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 916,075
  • Product dimensions: 7.96 (w) x 5.18 (h) x 0.86 (d)

Meet the Author

Neil McMahon holds a degree in psychology from Stanford and was a Stegner fellow. He has published ten novels, in addition to the bestselling thriller Toys, coauthored with James Patterson. He lives in Missoula, Montana, where his wife directs the annual Montana Festival of the Book.

Read an Excerpt

Lone Creek

By Neil McMahon

HarperCollins

Copyright © 2007 Neil McMahon
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-079221-3

Chapter One

I'd only ever seen Laurie Balcomb a few times, usually glimpses while I was working and she was passing by on her way to someplace else. I'd never met her or spoken with her. She and her husband were the new owners of the Pettyjohn Ranch, and they didn't socialize with the help.

But when she came into sight on this afternoon, riding horseback across a hay field, there was no mistaking her even from a quarter mile away. Her hair was auburn shot through with gold, she was wearing a brindle chamois shirt, and the way the sunlight caught her, she looked like a living flame.

I hadn't paid much attention to Laurie before this, other than to notice that she was a nice-looking woman. The sense I'd gotten from her was subdued, distant. Even her hair had seemed darker.

But now, for just a second, something slipped in my head-the kind of jolt you got when you were walking down a staircase in the dark and thought there was one more step at the bottom.

I shook it off and slowed my pickup truck to a stop. This was September, a warm afternoon at the end of a dry Montana summer, and I'd been raising a dust cloud the size of a tornado. I figured I'd let it settle so Laurie wouldn't have to ride through it.

But instead of passing, she rode toward me and reined up. The horse was one of thethoroughbreds she'd brought out here from Virginia, a reddish chestnut gelding that looked like he'd been chosen to fit her color scheme. Like her, he was fine-boned, classy, high-strung. A couple hundred thousand bucks, easy.

"Are you in a fix?" she called. She had just enough accent to add a touch of charm. In a fix, I remembered, was Southern for having trouble.

I pointed out the window toward the thinning dust storm.

"Trying not to suffocate you," I said.

"Oh. How thoughtful." She seemed surprised, and maybe amused, to hear that from a man in sweaty work clothes, hauling trash in a vehicle older than she was.

She walked the restless horse closer, stroking his neck to soothe him. She handled him well, and she knew it.

"So you men are-what's the term-'gutting' the old house?" she said.

The truck's bed was loaded with bags of lath and plaster, crumbling cedar shakes, century-old plumbing, the skin and bones from the ranch's original Victorian mansion. Nobody had lived there for more than a generation, but the Balcombs had big plans for this place. The mansion was on its way to being restored and turned into a showpiece for the kinds of guests who would buy the kinds of horses that Laurie was riding.

"That's the term," I said.

"You're an unusal-looking group. Not what I would have expected."

"You mean we're not like the guys on New Yankee Workshop?"

"Well, there do seem to be a lot of tattoos and missing teeth." "They're all good at what they do, Mrs. Balcomb."

"I'm sure they are. And don't misunderstand me-I think they're charming."

That opened my eyes. I'd heard my crew called a lot of things, but none of them involved words like charming.

"I'll pass that on," I said. "They'll be knocked out."

"So why are you here all alone on a Saturday?"

I shrugged. "Only chance I get to be the boss."

Her smile was a quick bright flash that shone on me like I was the one important thing in the world.

"You look like you could be bossy," she said. Then she caught herself up as if she'd slipped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be impolite."

I was confused, and it must have shown.

"That scar," she said. "It's like on a villain in an old-fashioned movie."

My left hand rose of its own accord and my thumb touched the raised, discolored crescent that topped my cheekbone. It wasn't something I ever thought about any more. The touch broke loose a run of sweat from the hollow under my eye down my nose. It itched like hell, and while I knew that scratching was bad manners, I couldn't help myself. My hand came away smeared with plaster dust and red chalk.

"Just a low-rent injury and a surgeon with a hangover," I said.

She smiled again, but this time she seemed a little disappointed.

"You could come up with a more interesting story," she said. "Think about it." She turned the gelding away and eased him into a trot with her boot heels.

I gave her a hundred yards lead on my dust cloud, then drove on.

"Interesting" wasn't in my job description.

(Continues...)


Excerpted from Lone Creek by Neil McMahon Copyright © 2007 by Neil McMahon. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 24, 2007

    A Character Worth Meeting

    The main character, Hugh Davoren, is highly interesting. He is strong, both physically and mentally. Although he is attractive to women, he is also emotionally vulnerable to the manipulations of his employer's wife, Laurie Bascomb. To protect his criminal activities, Mr. Bascomb attempts to discredit Hugh and orders his subordinates to attack Hugh physically. It is Hugh's efforts to defend himself (and the strength of character displayed in these efforts) that make the book fascinating.

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    A fabulous thriller

    Former journalist Hugh Davoren figures he has come full circle as he works construction near his hometown of Helena, Montana. Hugh plans to keep out of trouble by just doing his day job as a laborer at the renovation of the colossal old Pettyjohn Ranch though the place has bad memories for him, bought by affluent Easterner, Wesley Balcomb and his wife Laurie.----------------- However, Laurie is fascinated by his scar on his face, which he says is nothing more than a drunken surgeon¿s reminder that medicine and alcohol don¿t mix even if the remains seem interesting. However, Davoren¿s efforts to stay clean fail when he finds two murdered thoroughbreds dumped in the reconstruction garbage heap. Instead of praise for doing his job, he is tossed in jail as the East Coast businessman wants him out of the way though Davoren cannot think of any motive unless the newcomer is dealing in illegal trafficking. With the help of his only on-site friend, Blackfoot Viet Nam veteran 'Madbird', he makes inquires even as adversaries on both sides of the law want him dead with the most dangerous being hired killer John Doe.------------- LONE CREEK is a fabulous thriller starring an individual trying to stay out of trouble, but becomes a magnet for danger though he does not know why. Hugh is a wonderful protagonist as for the most part he avoids people especially his employer¿s wife yet in spite of his efforts people come after him, literally trying to kill him. Readers will follow Davoren¿s efforts to survive an ordeal he does not understand in one Big Sky sitting.------------ Harriet Klausner

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 27, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

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